A calculation of edge density and temperature profiles based on "classical"
physics - particle, momentum and energy balance, heat conduction closure relations,
neutral particle transport - yielded a pedestal structure that is qualitatively and
quantitatively similar to that found experimentally in five DIII-D [J. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion,42, 614 (2002)] discharges, when experimental radial electric field and rotation profiles
and experimentally inferred heat transport coefficients were used. The principal cause of
the density pedestal was a peaking of the inward pinch velocity just inside the separatrix
caused by the negative well in the experimental electric field, and the secondary cause
was a peaking of the radial particle flux caused by the ionization of incoming neutrals.
There is some evidence that this peaking of the radial particle flux just inside the
separatrix may also be responsible in part for the negative electric field in that location.

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Reprinted by permission of American Institute of Physics, http://journals.aip.org